manolo wrote:Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:G-d calls you to Himself, an individual, in your incompleteness and inconsistencies, but as yourself........
What does that say about freedom? What are your other options? You can be as a particle in a larger process, like a corpuscle in the superior vena cava, serving a purpose you have a dim inkling about, except other than it's cyclical, and global and eternal. Then when your purpose is spent, you can either disappear into an indefinite and indifferent ethereal entity, or cease to exist altogether. G_d gives you a SELF, and a self can have freedom. As a cellular unit of a great All-that-is-All or a living analogy of a cigaret ember hitting the pavement, fergetabouttit.....'>...........
Miss Faucie,
I don't think that these are the only two options.
Maybe the image of God that Christians hold is just wrong. Why cant there be a God who is not jealous, has learned to love his/her/it's creations and can let them go in their completeness?
There doesn't have to be the stories we have to hand; as Donald Rumsfeld famously said "There are unknown unknowns." Why not?
Alex.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Alex Manolo ethinker...
has learned to love his/her/it's creations
Christians believe that G_d loved His creations enough to become One of them even though Humans are/act like Depraved Sinful Egotistical Chaos Monkey Killer Apes knowing very well that He was certainly/almost certainly going to get killed by them in an especially nasty painful way.....
The Incarnation was somewhat similar to me deliberately becoming one of my cat children.... I love them dearly and they are cute & playful and can be very affectionate people but they too are/can be Violent & Egotistical as well as Killers for the Fun of It...
can let them go in their completeness
Completeness of folly, evil & violence???
IMHO given the Depraved Egotistical Chaos Monkey Killer Ape Nature of Humans, the probability is that G_D letting us go to completeness while effectively confined to this planet would be disastrous.....
Especially now that we have Nukes, Biotech, Chemical Weapons etc plus conflicting ideologies & religions....
If G_d/some benign Higher Power does not intervene and if we do not get off Earth into the Heavens
on our own with sustainable colonies in Outer Space, we are very likely doomed by ourselves or Mother Nature with another big space rock or similar like happened to the Dinosaurs.....
IIRC the Bible predicts that if G_d/Jesus does not intervene, we are going to be destroyed/destroy ourselves..... *
21"For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. 22"Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
http://biblehub.com/matthew/24-22.htm
*I think hope He does intervene even though it said will be VERY scary: **
Lots of darkess. Warned not to long for it.........
But it usually best to have multiple Plan Bs...
Maybe even a Plan N.... For NASA....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA
**Sort of like what a cat feels when even a friendly human makes sudden moves toward him or her......
For the love of G_d, consider you & I may be mistaken.
Orion Must Rise: Killer Space Rocks Coming Our way
The Best Laid Plans of Men, Monkeys & Pigs Oft Go Awry
Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord, for It is Darkness, Not Light